Most of you have been teaching for several weeks. Patterns are probably beginning to emerge and classroom routines are probably making you feel more comfortable than you were when you started. Can you still see the teacher that you started this semester wanting to be? Are you satisfied that you're actually teaching or are you concerned that you may be getting immersed in playing the "game of school?" Assess your teaching so far. What are you doing well, and what do you know you need to work on? What evidence are you seeing for both your successes and difficulties? What are you determined to change and why?
- I can still see myself as a work in progress, and I know I will eventually be the teacher I wanted to be, but I will have to work toward that. I have found that there are a lot more road blocks to doing all of the kinds of things I would like to include in my classroom, mainly the fact that I generally have much less time to work on specific topics than I would like. I started off wanting to be a teacher who makes learning fun for students, something they look forward to, but it's definitely not as easy to do that as I thought.
- I've found that it's hard to get students engaged enough to enjoy the lesson in progress and I feel that as a teacher finding ways to engage my students further is one of the key things I find myself wanting to improve. I find that once I have my students engaged it's not a big stretch to get them enjoying what's going on in class.
- I think I've become good at finding different and interesting ways to get material across to students so that the learning process is student centered and more interactive. I feel that students will learn a lot more if they are the ones discovering the information instead of having it told to them. I feel that is one of my stronger points as a teacher.
- I also feel I need to improve in my lesson planning, I have gotten really comfortable finding ways to open up lessons and get into activities, but I think I need to work on ways to tie up loose ends and close lessons more effectively.